big skimmer yet lots of algae

[segraves1]

sounds good!

[PurpleAardvark]

Ah the water flow iis the the issue once you fix that the treatmnet will get rid of it. 12-13 hours isn't that bad just shortin up the time in the winter to 10 to 11 hours.

[segraves1]

so what should I look at to figure out where I need more flow? I'm really trying to stay away from putting power heads all over the dang tank.

[PurpleAardvark]

Why don't we chat some time and I will help you out a bit too. obby has some good Ideas, me and him just chatted but why dont you post a pic and we can take a better look. I don't think you need more powerheads just to ajust them a bit thats all or your closed loop.

[segraves1]

I'll take some pictures tomorrow when I get home from school. I just walked past the tank and did a "look over" and honestly I see more algae growing IN THE WATER FLOW than in the "dead spots". How in the world is that possible?

[seahorsedreams]

What are your phosphate readings? Phosphates enter your tank mainly though fish food, tap water and carbon. Yes, the carbon you use in your filters to clean up some impurites will leach phosphate unless it is a quality phosphate free carbon. Geez, did that sentence make sense? And because you nitrates are reading zero doesn't mean it isn't being produced in huge amounts in your tank. The nitrates is what the algae is eating so it would make sense that there was little or no nitrate left to be detected.

Where do you get you water from? Do you you mix your own saltwater? If so, have you tested the freshwater before adding the salt? If you buy from an LFS that mixes water and you buy it by the gallon, also buy their RO/DI at that time and test it. It's the same water they are using to make the saltwater and if the TDS is high you can be assured there is extra nutrients in the saltwater also. I tested the RO/DI from the LFS and read 6ppm.... they hadn't changed their filters in awhile! If you buy treated natural seawater like scripps or catalina, test it and see if their are any phosphates or nitrates. If you've been mixing your salt with conditioned tap water..... I would say that was your biggest problem right there.

Even though you have good general flow doesn't mean there can't be a dead spot or two where you can't see. There could be a build up of detritus behind the rockwork. Detritus needs to be kept in the water column by a well directed flow so that your skimmer can do an even more efficient job.

How are you extracting the algae now? Be careful in removing it that you don't cause fragments to be distributed all over the tank. Scrubbing the rock can make the problem worse.

Adding a fuge full of macro algae can help with nutrient control. There will be less nutrients available to the nuisance algae and if you prune it often you can remove a considerable amount with each harvest.

As already said lights can play a role. If you have a light loving algae and your lights are on for XX number of hours, it just stands to reason that if you shorten their photosynthesis time, the algae has less time to be prolific. Is your tank near a window so that natural light is shining in on it. I had that problem and bought some car tint and tinted my huge 42 panel window. Best thing I ever did. Cut my AC bill by ALOT!

How often do you do water changes. When I had an outbreak once I wanted it gone so bad I changed 5 gallons everyday on a 55 gallon tank. So how bad do you want it gone..... go change water as frequently as you can stand it :-)

What does your invert clean up crew consist of? To be effective in fighting algae there needs to be a correct number of the correct creatures. If you are having a hair algae problem and you are heavy on the carrion-eating critters your clean up crew isn't as effective as it needs to be. So, you dump a load of hair algae-eating critters in to eat the algae and you've basically dumped in a load of fuel producing snails (or whatever) to grow the algae. You need not too much and not too little and the right mix.

Um, okay... that's all I can think of for now. Excuse and typos and grammar bloopers because I worked last night and I am typing with only one eye open at this point :-)

[seahorsedreams]

I'll take some pictures tomorrow when I get home from school. I just walked past the tank and did a "look over" and honestly I see more algae growing IN THE WATER FLOW than in the "dead spots". How in the world is that possible?

They don't care about the physical flow to much exactly... they just wanna be in a nutrient rich environment. A tank with dead spots has a build of detritus which fuels the environment for algae growth.

[segraves1]

wow....ok lots to answer.....

Well I have absolutely no idea what my phosphate readings are (I never thought I would need to check it since I use RO) but I will go this afternoon and buy a test kit for it. I do not use carbon or other filtering systems. I just use my mega skimmer and some micro (but for some reason the micro is not growing, go figure).

I mix my own saltwater from RO that I make at home. I DID however I do a massive water change about two months ago which required me to go buy 5gal bottles of DI water from the store (those self fill stations). After thinking about what people talked about, it MIGHT be possible that I could have added all kinds of phosphates from that water change (since I have no idea how often those things are kept up to spec). Again, I had never thought about phosphates but looking back it is possible. I use Instant Ocean salt in my system.

I’m sure there are a number of dead spots in the tank (not entirely dead but slow enough that things can settle there). I probably need to take another look at my directed flow and see if I can get rid of these dead spots because I have on occasions had to go in and “churn up” the stuff in these areas to clean them out.

I guess I have been making my algae problem worse since I have always been scrubbing the rocks and letting the algae go into the water column in hopes the skimmer will take it out (which it seems to be taking a lot out since the skimmer is ALWAYS full of nasty black crap).

I have a fuge now but for some reason the chaetomorpha just will not grow. It just stays in a “blob” and is actually being overgrown with micro. Instead the fuge is FULL of micro (same brown hair algae) that is growing like crazy. I have set these lights back to be on from 10-6 like the main tank.

I have shortened down the light hours to 10AM to 6PM (for the halides) and still have the Acentics come on at 7AM and off at 10PM. The tank is not in any way near any windows so that can’t be it.

Really, I never do water changes unless I do something stupid (such as two months ago). I try to just let the skimmer keep the tank clean and just top off fresh water (automatic) and salt.

My invert clean up crew is just a bunch of standard hermits and some turbo snails. Nobody has ever been able to give me a good list of clean up crew. I bought a Yellow Eye Tang (Ctenochaetus strigosus) and a lawn mower blenny specifically to take care of hair algae and for a while it was doing wonders, but again about the time I did that massive water change, things got out of hand. What should I get?

[PurpleAardvark]

I personally would do regular water changes. That will help you out alot. The reason your skimmer is going nuts is because your tank has gone into nutrant overload, which is feeding your hair algea. It doesn't help with the brown algea either. The dead spots are probly near were your output is.try drilling a couple of small holes on the side of the pvc were you closed loop comes out into the water to break up those areas. As a far as the water changes go I usally recommend 10% per week. I usally do 25% a week. After time when you have dillouted the pos. and nutr. that you have going on you could go every other week. IMO water changes are the key to keeping any tank free of hair algea.

[segraves1]

Well I did a phosphate reading today and couldn't even read it with the test kit. I then brought some water to my LFS (About the Reef) and had them test it on their cool colorrimiter. They tested it and came up with a reading of 0.03. So the water is "clear" of phosphate but they made the point that with as much algae as I have, I'm probubly "using it up" as fast as I make it.

SOOOO....here is what my plan (that Chris at About told me) is.

step 1: I'm going to stop feeding the fish for a week or two
step 2: I cranked the skimmer up to run "wet" and clear out as much as possible
step 3: wait and watch


I will take a look at the water flow tonight as see what I can do.

so thanks guys


side note: what kind of clean up crew should I invest in?